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During the whole historic period, Cham people already created a highly developed culture, a unique traditional folk arts. The arts of architectures, sculpture Cham, with Giava and Khome which are appreciated to be one of three special arts in the South East Asia, having the world scale. Beside tangible cultural values such as the systems of temples and pagodas, ancient towers, embossment, stone statues, Champa comunity, especially for 5 sites in Ninh thuan,Binh Thuan which are places now keeping diversified and intangible objects, the treasure of old stories, proverbs and especially, puzzles and especially the folk museum, dances, musical rituals, worshipping singing with the unique and diversified system of musical instruments.
Singing and dancing of Cham group reflect clearly the awareness, concepts, arts, sensitivity, commemoration with ancient ancestors who had great contributions to building the country and bringing about the peace for village people, or the adoration of one or some of holy kings. We should together discover this unique art to see more clearly the values of folk singing and dancing in the spiritual life, especially in the soul life of Champa people.
Cham people are now keeping a treasure of folk songs with melodies, tones having close relations with folk songs of Vietnamese people and melodies of folk songs of coexisting ethnic groups and neighboring ethnic groups. Many lyrical melodies such as “Thay mai”(Ai đen phia xa- who coming from far away), “Ainich lo”, “Lekdiphik”, or such melodies as “Dohdamdara”, Klaymrailopan (colorful thread) full of lyrical sounds. Cham people also have melodies of Ariya, which is the method of long singing according to the form of telling stories, and singing by poems and having a treasure of lullaby. The treasure of ritual music, singing which are transferred and performed by Balamon Monks in rituals, this is the ritual music originating from Balamon religion from ancient India: “ in Veda bible from the XX century BC "Samma Veda" is the records of songs used for singing when worshipping, amounting totally to 1549 songs, the contents are mainly from Phuoc Veda which are described clearly in worshipping so using these songs and carrying out worshipping".
Although experiencing many ups and downs of the history, covered by time dusts, and the Vietnam wars against France and America lasted long, which spoiling many temples, old towers and other intangible values, the art of traditional singing and dancing of Cham people as the precious pearl which is silently existing in the community of Champa group basing on the festival environment. Those cultural values formerly only existed in religious rituals, beliefs.
The art of singing and
dancing is close to the typical values in each festival with ritual
songs(Dcannuy), folk singing (Douh Muduon), folk songs, dancing (Paran
douh), love songs(Douh Dam dara)… While singing (depending on the contents
of the songs)to have dances: religious dances (Siva dancing), religious
dances (Dap lua, vai chai…), folk dances (mua quat, doi nuoc), royal
dances (Apsara)… attaching with dancing and singing are sets of musical
instruments: Ginang drum, Baranưng drum, clarinet Xaranai, gongs, Kanhi
musical instrument, tintinnabulum … such factors harmonize with each other
to create sounds
In the belief of Cham peole, dignitaries are in charge of controlling rituals and music and dancing. The most of dignitaries are professional, sometimes are invited form other play to serve music for rituals, festivals. Previously, in the rituals of religious Cham people, especially without the participation of music and dancing. Currently, religious Cham People Ba ni also participate in activities of dancing and singing with Cham Balamon people. Almost in every ritual of Cham Balamon people, music always participates positively and becomes an important factor in many rituals, festivals. In the old time Cham people did not dare use musical instruments, traditional dances to serve people for play or entertainment in daily life, if so it means insulting gods, which is contradictory to morality, customs. According to the tendency of new life, gradually the arts of singing and dancing of Champa group are put onto the stage to be performed.
Cham people have a diversified traditional musical background, which was formed and develop early in the history of the nation. Nowadays, visiting Champa society, we will have a chance to see festivals which is dense in the year full of religious characters. Therefore, in any their festivals, they all have dances and songs. Music has become one important factor of the ritual, which is the ritual of the festival and the soul of the festival. Champa people compare music to the soul of the nation and it seems unchangeble with the time. Previously, music is full of holy characters, which is only used to serve rituals, and not used for entetaining. In the Cham society in the old time belief and religion governed most of fields, from economy to social culture, the dignitaries in Taoism belonging to the clergies both have the right of controlling, leading the society, economy and play an important role in the field of culture and arts, especially music.
From the establishment of Champapa nation, Balamon was imported and played an important role in the spiritual life of Champa people. Under the dynasties of Champa Kings, between theocracy and royalty, there is always an concensus (specifically, holy capital and capital are always located close to each other such as Mi Son holy capital and Tra Kieu capital in Duy Xuyen, Quang Nam. Kings Cham regarded themselves as the incarnation of gods and then creating a system of kings – gods to control the country. When importing into Champa society, Balamon already harmonized native musical folk arts with the culture of Balamon to create traditional musical arts of Champa full of special characters. Cham Balamon people attract native folk cultural factors in to rituals, in which having folk musical arts, at the same contributing to keeping cultural values and traditional musical instruments, through musical ritual activities.
The traditional orchestra of Champa people with drums such as Ginang, Baranung, pan-pipe Saranai, Kanhi exist in the cultural life of Champa people, and musical instruments at the same time existing in the spiritual life of Taoism. The history and books show clearly that : after importing into Champa society, Balamon replaced orthodox gods by Kings-Gods, who are real kings controling Champa nation, which implies the meaning of the fact that Balamon unified kings keeping royalty with gods of Balamon. Besides, Balamon already put ritual musical activities into Champa royalty, then leading to the unification between ritual-religious music and royal music. Although the traditional music of Champa people is formed from three types : Nonreligious music, royal music, and ritual music, ancient Champa society was a religious society so among three types of this music always having the harmonization and combination, in which the ritual music type played the most important role and the royal music of Champa always play an important part in ritual activities of Champa Royalty. Due to the features of religion and social characteristics so there is always harmonization between royal music and religious music. In the folk music of Champa, traditional musical instruments are very diversified, most of musical instruments participate in performing activities of traditional rituals of Champa people. The set of drums baranung, ghi nang, gongs, cymbals, lothophones, wooden bells, karong (tintinnabulum string); the sets of strings including ka nhi (nhi mu rua), champi, the set of breathing musical instruments saranai, horns, and by buffalow’s horns, flutes… the dignitaries explain that main musical instruments in the orchestra of Champa rituals are the symbols of a unification of parts of gods. In which, pan-pipe Saranai is the symbol of struggling, drum Paranung is the part of bull ( embracing in the bull to sit and clap, the couple of drums ghi nang are two legs( always in the cross position and sit to perform, one hand claps onto the face of the above drum and one hand holds sticks to hit on the reversed side). Cinet |
